Mature, measured, published
DFA is not a pilot technology. It grew from four decades of research on how distribution equipment fails, and utilities have run it on working circuits for years and published what it found.
Program figures as published: distribution circuits instrumented, CIRED 2025; circuit-years of operating data, CIRED 2025; waveform recordings collected, CIRED 2026; countries, IEEE ISGT Europe 2024. The US fleet today: DFA Data.
From the lab to the line
Every DFA classification rests on field cases: a recording at the substation matched to what a crew found on the line. That record now spans thousands of circuit-years.
- 1978
Waveform research begins at Texas A&M
The Power System Automation Laboratory starts studying the electrical behavior of distribution faults, and later develops the first commercial high-impedance arcing fault detector.
- 1997
EPRI sponsors Distribution Fault Anticipation
Researchers instrument 70 circuits with specialized recorders and correlate more than 1,000 circuit-years of data with what crews found in the field.
- 2006
Licensed for commercial use
Power Solutions licenses DFA from EPRI and Texas A&M University.
- 2014
The Texas wildfire project
Six Texas utilities install DFA on more than 50 circuits in the Texas Power Line-Caused Wildfire Mitigation Project and document what it helps them fix.
- 2018
Utilities publish their own results
Pedernales writes up DFA in T&D World; Mid-South Synergy, Bluebonnet and Concho Valley present their cases at industry conferences.
- 2020
California wildfire plans
Southern California Edison completes an initial 60 DFA installations under its wildfire mitigation plan.
- 2021
Scaling up
PG&E adds DFA to 50 circuits and plans 600 more; Mid-South Synergy moves to put DFA on all of its circuits.
- 2024
Five countries
The program passes 700 instrumented circuits in five countries, and some utilities have DFA on more than half of their circuits.
- 2026
Across 8,900 circuit miles at PG&E
PG&E reports DFA sensors across more than 8,900 circuit miles, and several utilities have DFA on every circuit.
What utilities have said in public
“DFA functions like a heart monitor for the distribution system.”
Southern California Edison, 2020 Wildfire Mitigation Plan fact sheet“Distribution Fault Anticipation Sensors: Identify small system disturbances across 8,900+ circuit miles.”
Pacific Gas and Electric, PG&E Currents, May 2026“The primary benefit of implementing DFA technology is wildfire and outage mitigation.”
Kerry Kelton, CEO, Mid-South Synergy, America's Electric Cooperatives (NRECA), January 2022“Provides greater visibility into circuits within our high-risk wildfire areas.”
Central Electric Cooperative, Oregon PUC wildfire workshop, December 2025“The devices have already detected disturbances on two separate cable terminations up to eight weeks before they interrupted power supplies.”
UK Power Networks innovation trial, quoted in Utility Week, February 2021“PG&E is adding DFA to 50 circuits in 2021 and anticipates adding it to another 600 circuits over the next three years.”
Pacific Gas and Electric, T&D World, August 2021“DFA has so far been the single most important operational technology we have implemented which has given us wins in the shortest amount of time.”
Dr. Comfort Manyame, senior manager of research and technical strategy, Mid-South Synergy, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, 2018“DFA has enabled us to identify potential issues like trees on lines, failing clamps, failing arrestors, etc. and resolve those issues before they create power interruptions.”
Robert Peterson, director of control center and emergency preparedness, Pedernales Electric Cooperative, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, 2018“A crew was already en route, with the information that the likely cause was a failed arrester, before we even got the call from the affected location.”
Thomas Ellis, manager of engineering, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, 2018Utilities that have published, presented or filed on DFA
- Pacific Gas and Electric
- Southern California Edison
- Pedernales Electric Cooperative
- Mid-South Synergy
- Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative
- Concho Valley Electric Cooperative
- Central Electric Cooperative (Oregon)
- Pickwick Electric Cooperative
- Arizona Public Service
- UK Power Networks
86 papers, reports and talks
The DFA team publishes its field cases at CIGRE, CIRED, IEEE and the Texas A&M Conference for Protective Relay Engineers, often with utility co-authors.